I’ve walked into hundreds of dispensaries over the past eleven years. I’ve seen extraordinary products sitting in the back of a display case collecting dust while a mediocre competitor takes up the whole front shelf. I’ve watched brands spend six figures on packaging and practically nothing on the people selling it.
Here’s the hard truth: in cannabis, the product is rarely why you fail at retail. Execution is.
The brands that struggle share a common pattern. They launch with a splash — a nice website, clean branding, maybe some influencer posts — and then hand the product off to a distributor and wait. They assume the work is done. It isn’t. It’s just starting.
Retail is a relationship business. Dispensaries are flooded with new brands every month. Buyers are overwhelmed. Budtenders are undertrained on most of what’s on the shelf. If you’re not in that store consistently — educating, activating, building relationships, running demos, creating excitement at the counter — someone else will be. And they’ll get the placement you thought was yours.
The brands that win at retail are the ones that treat every account like a partnership, not a transaction. They show up. They train the staff. They run promotions that actually make the budtender’s job easier and make the customer feel good about the purchase. They plan three months ahead, not three days.
Field execution isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t make for a great Instagram post. But it’s the difference between a brand that’s on the shelf and a brand that moves.
If your product is good and your sales aren’t, look at your execution before you look at your formula.
VonTrees Consulting 